Saturday, July 4, 2015

Playing the App Store lottery

There are so many existing apps, plus all the new ones, that writing apps really is like playing the lottery these days.

A new game has an nearly 100% chance of only ever making enough money for a cup of coffee. It has a small chance of making enough to buy a car. And a tiny chance of making enough to buy a house, or even a small island. (There are 1 million apps, top 100 least are the house or island category--1 in 10,000 odds. The top few are in the by a "large island" category.)

I saw a report (and promptly forgot where) that about 12,000 new games come out each month.

That's 3,000 a week.

Apple features some of those new games each week. And that's really all that matters. Unless you have a lot of money to spend on ads, get very lucky, or do shady things like buying downloads, being one of those featured games is the only path to success.

Right now, Apple features about 15. And they do want to mix it up so it is not all the same type: some action games, some puzzles, some driving ones, etc. So you don't have to be in the top 15 out of all 3,000 to get featured, its more like the top one or two out of the style of game you make, so say the top 2 out of 500.

2 in 500 aren't great odds. But the potential payoff if you get that winning ticket is immense.